Knocking things off my list

Listmania!

I am enamored with the list idea. First, I made minestrone:


...it turned out damn good, and it was a lifesaver on Monday after the snow-induced busstop nightmare. So nice to come home from a cold and wet and sucky day to beautiful homemade soup!

Also, I got to working on #13- make something with the wool I bought in Victoria. I am so freaking happy with the outcome of this project! Not only did I knock an item off my list, and make something cool, but I learned a bunch of new knitting techniques (check out the round needle AND double-pointed needle action I got up to- go me!).

Casting on

Halfway done!

Double pointed needles - I actually know what to do with these!

Hat!

I AM CANADIAN

Left work: 5:45pm
Stopped at the grocery store
Got to the bus stop: 6:25pm
Bus arrived: 8:11pm

Stupid snow, really stupid drivers. But I survived, so I call it a win.

List

So, my friend Victoria started the year off with this list. It wasn’t a resolutions list, it was more like a goals list, mostly aimed at her artistic interests. Her list intrigued me, but I wasn’t about to go out and compose my own list…or at least, I hadn’t intended to.

But I think we all have a few ideas rolling around in our heads of things we want to do, dream of doing, keep intending on getting to…and it seemed natural to gather these persistent stray thoughts and set them down on paper (or at least in a word file). My list is neither as long nor as ambitious as Victoria’s (you can take a gander at her list here). It's not so focused on art (though it certainly includes some projects therein). Some things are beyond the mundane (check out #6), and it may be an embarrassingly short list (especially compared to Victoria's). But they are goals, and I do intend to get through them, within the year. At the very least, it’s a way to get some stuff done.

1. Make Minestrone soup
2. Upgrade blog template
3. Visit Textile Museum
4. Complete and submit Distillery collection
5. Create ‘frame’ print series
6. Make appointment with new dentist
7. Clean out closet, donate clothes
8. Bring books to used book store
9. Buy and install new shelves in hallway
10. Plant garden (sugar snap peas, green onions, lettuce, tomatoes)
11. Wallpaper closet doors
12. Take a looong walk at night with a friend
13. Use wool I got in Victoria

Meet Esme!

The good thing about my birthday is that, hello- it's my birthday. The bad thing is that (though I love February), its always cold, always grey. When I was young, this meant a decided lack of pool parties, as an adult, this means that I (and everyone else) is most interested in celebrating through hibernation.
Of course, hanging about the house (or apartment), no matter how cozy, sucks without a cat. So on my birthday we rectified my situation and got me a cat!

The brother and his roommate kindly drove me all over the GTA hunting. Well, not the entire GTA, just the downtown Humane Society and then the THS cat adoption centre out in Scarberia. The adoption centre was great! The cats weren't all shut up in cages, and there were cat toys and beds and scratching posts everywhere, and you could actually interact with the animals, which is the best (read: only) way to choose a new pet.

I chose a little 3 year old Tortie they called 'Oaks'. She's small and light (I'm actually guessing she might be less than three), and she's got zero fear. The car ride didn't bother her in the slightest, and when we opened up the cage in the apartment, far from hiding under the bed as I'd expected, she strolled out and started looking around immediately. She examined nearly everything, even ate a little, and then settled onto the couch for the brother to pet while we had dinner.

I discovered the next day that she likes to be up high! She made her way onto the tall shelf in my hallway, and she spent the next night curled up on top of my bookcase. I'm going to get a kitty mattress for up there (the book case is tall, but probably really uncomfortable).

After careful deliberation, I've decided to name her Esme. I think she likes the name- her cuddliness is improving!

Beads!

So, this one kind of came about in a roundabout way.

For Hanukkah, I made my aunt a bracelet, and she got me a purse - it's a gorgeous, very unique stiff-felt purse she got in the Distillery district. I'd admired those purses before, so when the holidays rolled around, she went back there to get me one (thanks!). The problem was the store was low in stock, and they didn't have any of my colours. My aunt got me a purple one.
It was lovely, but it was purple.
In its defence, it wasn't pink.
But still...purple.

So a few weeks after Christmas, when we each had a spare day, my aunt and I and the purple purse went back to the Distillery district, back to the hip, unique little boutique from whence it came. And they had a pile of new stock! Gorgeous neat purses in all the good colours of the rainbow. It was hard, but eventually I settled on a heather gray purse with cobalt and grass-coloured dots. Sounds weird, looks unbearably stylish.

While we were there, we did some browsing. The shop features mostly jewelry, mostly very unique, elegant but edgy stuff that both my aunt and I admire (she buys, I don't). While we're walking around the glass cases, admiring the shiny wonderfulness that is being sold there, she speaks up, saying that the bracelet I made her would fit in well with the store's inventory.

Now, I'm a bead artist. Its just a hobby, but I have developed a few skills, though I've never made any real profit off of it. Selling has never been a big priority of mine. But the guy running the shop comes over with a business card and tells me how to submit images of my work for evaluation by the owner.

And I love this idea! I've been working a lot on new projects, trying to get a portfolio of sorts made up, to show the type of stuff I'm interested in making for them. Very sleek, simple, elegant, with a little fun thrown in. Beads, strung by hand, but no single-string silliness (the type of thing I dislike seeing in shops, cause it's so easy to make it yourself, often better, and probably cheaper). My friend Victoria (of Sonnet & Mayhem fame) gifted me with a new notebook so I could keep track of new ideas (which for the last month have been pouring out like water) and important facts on current pieces (time involved, prices of materials, etc). I've been beading up a storm. I've visited Sassy Bead Store four times this month, and the brother drove me out to Bead FX last weekend. I RAN OUT OF BEADS (seriously!) and had to special-order more. At this point, it's becoming obvious that if this venture goes forward (and I'm aware that there is no guarantee of it doing so - I am trying not to count the chickens, I swear!), I might have to start ordering my beads online, in BULK. I've never created pieces like this before, and I'm loving it.

I really hope the shop is interested in my stuff, if only because at this point, I'm having so much damn fun!